


Medea’s Garden

by Sadbhyl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Make Me a Monday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:59:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sadbhyl/pseuds/Sadbhyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small plot of land and a shovel are enough to keep John happy.  But Sherlock always puts his own spin on even the most innocent of pasttimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Medea’s Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://ashknight_1214.livejournal.com/profile)[**ashknight_1214**](http://ashknight_1214.livejournal.com/) for Make Me a Monday, who wanted John gardening. I’m an avid American gardener, but getting into the UK mindset was a little challenging. [Down on the Allotment](http://veggies-only.blogspot.com/) was a great resource. Also, I wasn't the only one bitten by this, so check out [Instead of Roses](http://solrosan.livejournal.com/4618.html) by [](http://solrosan.livejournal.com/profile)[**solrosan**](http://solrosan.livejournal.com/). We had several of the same ideas but mixed them together slightly differently. Yay, groupthink!

Sweaty and dirty but deeply satisfied, John leaned on the spade to admire his work.

The garden of 221 wasn’t very large, barely as wide as the frontage and only a third the length of the house. Even so, it had obviously been too much for Mrs. Hudson to keep up with due to her hip. The grass had been neat, but the beds were overgrown with weeds that she just kept trimmed down rather than pulling and replanting. It hadn’t been noticeable in winter, but as spring woke the gardens and parks around them, John had become aware of what a dreary, uninspiring hole it left in the otherwise cozy if worn house.

She’d been surprised when he offered to take it on. “But surely with your shoulder—”

“No, it’s fine. The doctors said I had to keep working it, and chasing after Sherlock may have sorted my leg but it isn’t doing anything for my supraspinatus.”

“Well, if you’re sure…”

One long weekend and two loads of compost later, it was starting to look like a proper garden.

He’d left a small patch of grass, now properly trimmed and fed, for Mrs. Hudson to put her chair out to enjoy the sunny days. The original beds lining either side of the property were weeded and turned, built up with rich, loamy compost and now planted with a variety of flowers. The back part of the yard was all new, two four-by-eight-foot vegetable beds now taking advantage of the direct sunlight that had been killing off the grass. Already his thoughts danced around the taste of warm, fresh picked tomatoes and emerald green courgettes, beetroots and parsnips and fresh peas straight from the vine.

“Oh, John,” Mrs. Hudson sighed as she joined him, “this is lovely!”

He pulled himself out of his produce fantasies to smile at her. “I’m afraid it’s too late for the peonies this year, but the nigella and mallow should brighten up a few vases.”

She touched his arm, touched her own mouth, speechless, then drifted around the garden, brushing her fingers over lavender and verbena, sweet peas and allium.

“Really, John,” Sherlock spoke low enough not to be overheard but loud enough not to startle him, “manual labor?”

“Not all of us are specialized creatures of intellect, Sherlock.” John didn’t look back, still watching Mrs. Hudson take in the space. “It felt good to do some hard work for a change.”

“I do hard work.”

“No, you are hard work. There’s a difference.”

Sherlock huffed, but John could hear it was more from amusement than offense.

“Besides, come July when we have fresh tomatoes for our fry-ups, you’ll be grateful for all this manual labor.”

“Hardly. You know I don’t like to eat.”

“That’s because you eat rubbish. A little fresh veg will put some color in your—” John glanced at him. “In your anything, really.”

“What do I need color for?”

John grinned.

“Isn’t it lovely, Sherlock?” Mrs. Hudson joined them, eyes still bright.

“It’s very nice.” John was impressed with Sherlock’s ability to keep any sarcasm out of his faint praise. John knew their landlady was one of Sherlock’s few soft spots, but it always amused him to see it.

“John, love, I wonder if you thought about adding some geraniums toward the back.”

“Whatever you like, Mrs. Hudson. I left plenty of room for you to do what you like.”

She caught his arm and drew him along. “And maybe some salvia. There should be more red, don’t you think?”

He grinned back at Sherlock and let Mrs. Hudson lead him. “Whatever you think is best.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, shook his head and disappeared back into the house.

***

John was thinning the lettuce when Mrs. Hudson came out, weaving slightly under the awkward weight of a gallon planter bearing a tall, spear-leaved plant already putting up long flower-bearing stems. “John, dear, would you be a love and find a place for this?”

“What have you got there?”

Depositing the pot in his arms, she took a deep breath. “Foxglove, dear. From Sherlock.”

“Sherlock gave you a plant?”

“That’s what I said, dear. What do you think, near the delphiniums?”

“Um, yes, of course.” He was still trying to wrap his mind around Sherlock in a plant shop.

***

John hadn’t been expecting a package. But it had his name on it, from a flower bulb company in Lincolnshire, so he signed for it and took it upstairs. Inside was a variety of lily bulbs, carefully sorted and labeled. “Did you order these?” he called to Sherlock, who was slouched disinterestedly in his chair.

“Problem?”

“No problem. I’m just surprised is all. You know we can’t plant these until fall.”

Sherlock shrugged. “Whenever.”

***

When Mrs. Hudson added two aconites to the flowerbed, John started to get suspicious. When a datura planted itself in the back corner of the garden in the middle of the night, he was sure. The most basic research proved his theory.

“Sherlock.”

“Hmm?” He didn’t look up from his computer.

“Did you know that ingesting as little as two petals off a lily is enough to cause acute renal failure in humans?”

“Is it?”

“And that foxglove is a natural source of digitalis, which can cause heart failure in uncontrolled doses?”

“Interesting.”

“And that datura you planted yesterday is hallucinogenic.”

Sherlock didn’t answer.

“Sherlock, are you turning Mrs. Hudson’s garden into a poison nursery?”

“I think you’ll find you did that yourself when you planted those tomatoes.”

“What’s wrong with the tomatoes?”

“Nothing’s wrong with them. But they are members of the nightshade family, and as such are mildly poisonous if unripe or if other portions of the plant are ingested. I was simply following the pattern you set.”

“I set? I just wanted a fry-up! Or a fresh marinara.”

“Dull.”

John threw up his hands. “The datura’s going. The last thing we need is every kid in the neighborhood looking for a cheap high.”

“But not the aconite.”

“Why not the aconite?”

Sherlock looked at him innocently. “Wolfsbane, John. We might need it the next time Mycroft stops by.”


End file.
